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  • Essay / The Confessions, of Saint Augustine

    In the Confessions of St. Augustine, Augustine spoke articulately and passionately to the enduring questions that have agitated the minds and hearts of men since the dawn of time. The Confessions tell a story in the form of a long conversion with God. Through this conversion to Catholic Christianity, Augustine encounters many aspects of love. These forms of love help guide him toward an ultimate relationship with God. His troubled heart finally finds peace and rest in God at the end of the Confessions. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Augustine finds many ways to find peace in God. He sincerely regrets having turned away from God, the source of peace and happiness. Augustine is extremely grateful for the opportunity to live with God. Augustine uses love as his gateway to God’s grace. Throughout the Confessions, love and wisdom, the desire to love and be loved, and his love for his concubine, are all driving forces behind Augustine's desire to find peace in God. The death of his friend deeply upsets him, but also allows him to pursue God to become a faithful Christian. Augustine often experiences darkness, blindness, and confusion as he attempts to find rest in God, but he knows that when he finds it, his restless heart will be saved. Augustine began his childhood with a troubled heart as he had to live in two different worlds. These worlds included that of his mother's religious faith and the world of everything else. These two worlds confused and troubled Augustine as a child. In his mother's world, we talked about Christ the Savior and the powerful god who specially helps us to leave. So, as you can see, the Confessions of St. Augustine were written during a fury of activity as shepherd of the Catholics of Hippo. Saint Augustine, at the beginning of his priesthood and his episcopate, seems to have focused a lot on the fight against the Manichaeans in his community or abroad in Africa, since he had belonged to the Manichaean community for around ten years. years of his life. He spent much of those ten years of his life persecuting Catholics, and it was a great surprise to many African Catholics to see such a person come to life by the grace of God. They would have doubted his sincerity. Another interesting thing during this period is that St. Augustine began a number of other works devoted both to the monks of whom he was abbot (On Lies, On the Work of Monks, Commentary on the Galatians, among others letters) and to the laity he was responsible for caring for (Homilies on the Sermon on the Mount [unlisted], Exposition of the Psalms, works on the Eucharistic fast, works on marriage and virginity, various sermons and letters, etc. .). Towards the end of completing his Confessions, St. Augustine begins a series of more important works against the Donatists, but so as not to be confused or misled here, St. Augustine was actually writing letters to the Donatist bishops from the beginning of his priesthood, trying to convince them to end their schism. It seems that St. Augustine's attempt to complete his commentary on Genesis may also take into account how the Confessions ends with a reflection on God's work in Creation and on the soul. However, we can give other reasons why Confessions was written. Henry Chadwick, a scholar of ecclesiastical history, has drawn attention to the theory that the Confessions were written as a means of convincing many people of the..